Crucial water flows to the Tonle Sap, Southeast Asia’s largest lake, have been delayed for a second consecutive year according to river experts, severely disrupting fishing and threatening the food supply of more than a million people. The river reversal vital for Tonle Sap Lake may not happen until next month, officials said, owing to drought conditions and more than a dozen hydropower dams in China and Laos which are blamed for disrupting the natural flow of the Mekong River.
The Mekong typically swells in rainy season where it converges with Cambodia’s Tonle Sap River, causing an unusual reversed flow into the Tonle Sap Lake, filling it up and providing bountiful fish stocks. Water typically flows into the Tonle Sap lake for 120 days, swelling it six-fold before running back into the Mekong as the monsoon season ends, usually in late September.
Based on rain forecasts and rainfall data, the river’s unique reverse flow should happen in August, said Long Saravuth, a Deputy Secretary General of Cambodia’s National Mekong Committee. The Mekong River Commission (MRC) attributes the delay to lower 2019 rainfall and operations of upstream Mekong hydropower dams, two of which are in Laos and 11 in China. Even without the coronavirus squeezing international travel, there is no hope of attracting local tourists for boat trips from Kampong Khleang, which would normally handle 600 passengers a day.
Source: Trust
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